In my dictionary, the word “hokum” — defined as “a device used (as by showmen) to evoke a desired audience response” — is not accompanied by a picture of Monday’s “Docs in Frocks” extravaganza staged in the Rose Garden of the White House in support of President Barack Obama’s pending health care reform legislation.
But that may be only because the aging reference work was published before such transparent made-for-television spectacles became the norm in modern presidential administrations of whatever political persuasion.
“On the cusp of a key legislative push, President Obama on Monday filled the Rose Garden with doctors supportive of his health care overhaul,” The Associated Press reported.
“As a visual plug for Obama’s efforts, the White House arranged for the president to have 150 doctors representing all 50 states arrayed in the sun-splashed lawn area just outside the West Wing,” the article continued. “To make sure no one watching at home or catching news footage later would miss the point, the physicians wore white lab coats …”
People in white frocks equals doctors in work clothes taking time out from their extremely busy schedules to stand up for Obama-care as the perfect prescription for what ails the country’s sickly health care system. Get it?
And while you were twigging in to the symbolism of the sun-splashed tableau, did you also catch the insult to your intelligence implicit in the 50-state photo op — that inference by White House choreographers that the whole business might have gone right over your head had the doctors been dressed in clothing of their own choosing?
I have no way of knowing if any of the doctors in attendance were members of “Medecins Sans Frontieres” (Doctors Without Borders), the laudable international medical humanitarian group. But after being used as props for the evening newscasts, perhaps a few of them might now, for purposes of future Rose Garden gigs, welcome membership in Doctors Without Lab Coats (“Medecins Sans Blouses de Laboratoire”), pardon my newly required and possibly fractured French.
God only knows what the administration’s costume czar might come up with to clothe the next contingent that comes calling at the White House in support of a presidential priority. Properly dressing Cowboys Against Carbon Footprints might be easy, I suppose. (Ten-gallon Stetson hats and six-shooters.) But the task of outfitting Winos for Wind Power, say, could be a bit more challenging.
In any event, let the record show that Democrats do not have a corner on the nation’s supply of hokum, by any means. Republicans can certainly hold their end of the bargain and often have.
Exhibit A in latter-day administrations would be the infamous landing of former President George W. Bush on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln on May 1, 2003, as the U.S. Navy ship steamed back home after extended duty in the Persian Gulf.
Even as Bush stood in front of the ship’s crew and a huge banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” to announce the end of major combat operations in Iraq, there seemed to be a public unease that something was not quite right with the nationally televised picture.
“Mission Accomplished” would become a millstone around the presidential neck, and today, with the war still operating in guerrilla mode more than six years after the fact, what has long seemed apparent about the ceremony on the deck of the aircraft carrier is that it was pretty much an “overly theatrical and expensive stunt,” as Bush critics had suggested at the time.
But perhaps the more interesting aspect of the flap concerned the seemingly uncontrolled official spin involving the banner’s origins and whether its two-word message was meant to apply to the Iraq war or to the just completed 10-month gulf deployment of the USS Lincoln.
It was a Bill Clintonesque “depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘accomplished’ is” situation there for a while and may still be in some quarters today. For the most part though, former high Bush administration officials have acknowledged that the theatrics aboard the aircraft carrier were a mistake.
But, hey. That’s showbiz.
BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may reach him by e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.